


Give me one good reason (Why I should never make a change)

by jenna_thorn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Strike Team Delta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: Wherever they’d put their sniper, any of the dozen likely positions she’d spotted, she’d be an unmissable target. The sun broke through the scattered clouds and she smiled up into it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.She waited for the shot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: close enough to suicidal ideation that I feel this needs a warning. It’s obvious from the summary, but know your limits.

_Alone_

She’d spent two days dodging the spear tip of SHIELD, all too aware of their high tech communication net tying together the army of agents and support personnel with coverage over the entire city including her last mark, and in contrast, her own limited resources: the outdated surveillance equipment she had scavenged, what few weapons she kept, her own two hands. It would be enough. 

She operated on training so ingrained it seemed automatic as she made the final kill on her list, then erased any trace of her own presence. Out of habit, she evaded pursuit, first the chase she could see, then what she could feel, and finally what may have been only her own justified paranoia. A heavily made up middle-aged blonde with carefully styled hair, her wrists heavy with knock off jewelry, went into a train station and never came out. A sleepy-eyed teen slipped into a coffee shop and paid for the lowest priced item on the menu in coins. No one noticed yet another office worker in a cheap suit and cheaper shoes in the morning commuter rush.

Now she stood at the edge of a city square hosting the ghosts of centuries at midnight, but at just past dawn holding only pigeons and old men with no reason to be elsewhere or anywhere at all. Her opposites, and yet, she stood with nowhere to be, no one to be, tired of running.

She brushed her hair back, running a practiced touch over most of the weaponry she carried. It was too late to shed it now and she had no one to cache it for. Let Interpol strip her corpse, she thought, and she stepped into the square, placing herself in the concentration of sightlines. Wherever they’d put their sniper, any of the dozen positions she’d spotted, she’d be an unmissable target. The sun broke through the scattered clouds and she smiled up into it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She didn’t have to see them; she’d been pursued through most of Europe and she knew they were blanketing the city.

She waited for the shot.

_Alone_

It took him seven calls and fifteen minutes to set his teammates scattering in five directions, Wu to the high rise of the secondary suspected target, Coulson to the city’s business center, all of them chasing shadows of his own making while he sat on a low building overlooking the original city square, waiting. His earpiece squawked with the discovery of Kalishov’s body, the brief pursuit of his killer.

He shifted to let the rifle rest against his shoulder and pulled the long lens camera up instead. He took a photo of her, her arms slightly outstretched, her face turned toward the beam lighting her from just over the horizon. She reminded him of some painting, something he’d seen in the background of one mission or another, but he couldn’t remember enough of it to identify it, just to think of it as the light made her hair glow from within, the easy relaxation of her hands, the half-smile as though she were waiting for a kindness. When she blinked open her eyes and glanced up and to his right, he realized what she was waiting for, or rather who. She was waiting for him, for his bullet, for her death.

Coulson would be able to name the painting, Clint knew, if he asked. He spared a half second to hope he’d be able to, after this.

He sent the photograph to Coulson with a text, and seconds later, Nyguen’s raspy list of directions went silent with a click, followed by Coulson’s voice in full command-sharp clarity. “Acknowledged. Agent, you have three hours. Go dark.”

He pulled his earpiece free. Either he’d come back for it and the rest of his equipment, or he wouldn’t. He closed his eyes and thought of everything he should have said to Coulson, every thanks he should have given and hadn’t, and he walked away.

_Alone_

Phil could pretend that he stood with his back to the wall out of habit, but he knew better. He could keep his easy smile in the face of those outside his agency, but White’s overt hostility had him on edge. They’d walked a gauntlet of furious local enforcement and the representatives of a dozen international agencies, kept from one another’s throats only by the greater draw of the target they sought, each willing to tolerate old animosity in order to have a chance of being the one to capture or eliminate the last graduate of the Red Room. The Black Widow was one of few who could bring together such an array of hunters, stalking in and out of the conference rooms of the hotel, separated by old animosity and carefully delineated legal jurisdiction.

Hill flipped her phone closed and crossed the room to stand in front of him. “He’s got two hours and forty three minutes,” she said to him, but for the knowledge of the others in the room. White stormed out the door, Holliwell rolled his neck with a frankly alarming noise and opened his laptop, and Parker and Nyguen dropped to the carpet in a far corner to continue a three year old game of gin rummy. Hill stood close enough to lower her voice. “I’m surprised he trusts Hawkeye that much.”

Phil nodded noncommittally, decided that humming would be over the line of believable nonchalance, and answered, “You read both files. The director prepares for multiple possibilities.”

“Losing him?”

“Recruiting her.”

She snorted, too impolite to be faked, and scratched her eyebrow to cover her face. “You trust Hawkeye too much.”

“Well, someone has to,” Phil said.

“White thinks he’s flipped,” she said.

“White thinks I’m a half step behind.”

“Do they make honeymoon suites for three?” she mused and he shook his head, letting his smile show, since White wasn’t in the room.

_Together_

She sat on the pocked stone wall of the fountain, her ears full of the splash of water behind her, her eyes scanning the rooflines, dropping to examine the park benches surrounded by greedy pigeons, sliding down to the café with a handful of bored waitstaff and tired tourists. She watched him walk up, two cups in hand, to stand too far away to be a lover but too close to be a stranger. She made a show of looking up at him, then down at what was in his hands. “So which is for me?”

“You choose. I’ll drink first.”

“Didn’t want to taint the water?” She reached for the cup in his left hand, then took the one from his right. He sipped from the remaining one immediately. “Or tourist photos?” It didn’t really matter; she didn’t need her death to be public, it had just seemed easier.

“Yeah, uh, about that.” He rubbed the back of his neck, such an overt tell that she assumed it was faked. Intent on monitoring her reaction to whatever he’d spiked the tea with, she waited for more from him, looking up only when his pause stretched into silence. “Come in with me.”

“You don’t know what you are asking.”

“I know what I’m … okay, just between us, I really _don’t_ know what I’m offering. I’m off line and off script and I’m not the guy they would have sent to recruit you if anyone had any say.” He squatted before her to look up into her eyes.

She blinked. It had seemed easy minutes ago. So long fighting to survive, and now….

“So why?”

“I saw you. I’ve been there, kinda, not exactly .. but. Look, you’re amazing, okay? And…”

“You want me to work for you.”

“Heh, as if. No, I want to work with you. I’m not the boss. But my boss, well, uh, he’s not the boss, either, but he’s mine; he saw me and brought me in.”

“Did he bring you a cup of tea?”

“Actually he took me to the hospital and handed me to the local sheriff, but then he bailed my bandaged ass out and…gave me a chance to do some good.”

“I don’t do good.”

“I didn’t, but I do. You could. If you want. I thought maybe you might want. Up to you.”

He stared at the roofline, waiting for her answer.

\--::--

 

Clint glanced at his watch as the doorknob turned. More than half an hour to spare. Who said he couldn’t take orders? Other than everyone.

“I am quite vexed with you, Hawkeye.” Coulson tossed Clint his earpiece as he walked in the door of the safe house and let the bag slung over his shoulder drop against the wall.

“Where does vexed rank on the pissed off scale?” Clint’s hands itched to check his equipment. He’d heard a clink, he was sure. Maybe even a clatter.

“Somewhere between livid and apoplectic. Or more precisely, somewhere between putting you into house arrest and making you scrub toilets.”

“With my toothbrush?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’ll find you purple latex gloves.”

Clint felt a sudden sharp relief like the release of a lock. “You do love me.” He flopped cross legged onto the floor and pulled open the bag. Of course Coulson had packed it properly, shame on him for thinking any different. He peeled the neoprene cover back to check the bow, running his hands over his equipment. He’d do a full breakdown later, but for now, just the weight of the grip was reassuringly familiar.

“I did yesterday; today, I had to listen to White explain at length why he knew you had always been rogue. Tomorrow, I have to go in front of Fury and justify your actions.”

“So you’ll love me again next week.” He rolled to his feet, bag in hand.

“Only after you explain yourself.”

“Can I let someone else do that?” Clint nudged the interior door with his toe.

“No, you – “ He stopped, the word in his mouth dissolving into sibilants, his hand moving slowly away from his jacket, then forward toward her. “My pleasure to meet you, Ms. –“

She blinked then asked, “Does it matter?”

“We can’t just call you ‘hey you’,” Clint said. “I tried. They wouldn’t just call me Hawkeye.”

“We do call you Hawkeye. You tried to use a penis euphemism as a legal name.”

Clint crossed his arms. “It worked at the hospital.” There were hospital records across three countries with variations on Richard Johnson. Nobody would let him be John Doe, and he’d found that enough pain to require help made it hard to remember any fancy alias, but Dick Johnson was always funny.

“It didn’t work. They simply didn’t care.”

“See!” Clint crowed. “You care.”

“We’ve established that, but that leaves …”

“Alianova. Merisse Alianova,” she told Coulson.

“How convenient, as I happen to have your passport and visa, also a few others. I was amused by Anastasia Romanoff, myself. Surprised it wasn’t caught.”

“I don’t use it in Europe and Americans have short memories.”

“You might consider a more permanent name for when we are off the plane.”

Clint broke in. “Dibs on the window seat.”

“That’s next to White.”

Ah crap. “Dibs on whatever seat isn’t next to White.”

“Too late,” Coulson answered and the Widow, Merisse, Natalya, Elizabeth, whoever, moved just a bit, just enough for him to catch. And apparently, Coulson, who noticed everything.

Clint faced her, but she spoke to Coulson, not to him. “Shall I be riding in a kennel in cargo?”

“Ms. Alianova, I’m afraid we’re pressed for time, so I must be bluntly honest. I could handcuff you, I might even be able to find shackles that would hold you for more than moments, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to hand you over to Mossad, or the KGB, or MI6, any more than I’m going to put a bullet in you myself. I’m going to believe, until you give me reason otherwise, that you are not infiltrating my organization and suborning my agent, but rather exactly what you seem to be.”

“And what is that?”

Don’t say spy, don’t say spy. Clint thought. She wanted me to shoot her, boss, standing in the sunlight, she doesn’t want to be what she was. Don’t say honeypot, either. Or traitor, or…

“A survivor of what is often called the Red Room, an eminently trained professional who is exhausted by working alone yet cannot conceive of anything else. A recruit, who wants to join us, at the request of a peer in a very specific field. An asset for long term employment, who brings with her a rare skillset, along with both information and enemies.”

“So you promise to protect me?” There was the slightest whine to her voice, a little girl’s wheedle completely at odds with the woman who’d followed him from the square. 

Couslon didn’t even twitch. “I couldn’t, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. But I will feed you and arm you and guard you while you sleep as I do Hawkeye.”

“From your own people?”

“For the last several hours, yes. And I will bar the door behind you as you walk away now, if you choose, and yes, I’ve been doing that since earlier this morning as well.”

“Ah fuck, Coulson, I’m sorry,” Clint said. Coulson just looked at him, that poker face to beat all, and dammit if Clint didn’t wish he could somehow apologize for what he hadn’t done, as well as for what he had. “I can, uh, what do you need me to do? I can take the shit jobs or ... were you serious about scrubbing toilets because I will, I swear.”

“This is the man you sent to recruit me,” the Widow said, and Clint bit his tongue because she wasn’t wrong. Maybe a little harsh, but not wrong.

“I really really didn’t.” Coulson said. Clint’s heart went cold, but Coulson followed it with, “I wouldn’t have chosen to risk him against you. But he sees more than I do, and I trust him. So, that brings us back to what you want to do. Not what you think we want you to do. That will come later, if at all. What do you want to do?”

She leaned back to stare over Coulson’s shoulder for a moment. Clint glanced that way, but it was just a wall. He wondered what she was seeing, staring at that off-white wall. “This is how you bring in your people?” she asked the wall.

“In general, often, yes,” Coulson answered. “Every case has some singularities.”

Both of them done and dusted, Clint thought, though he hadn’t been recruited in an antique plaza in an exotic country. He also hadn’t chosen to stand still for the final shot.

For a moment, Clint could see the crime scene photos, the ones taken when the first responders had still thought he was already dead, pinned to an oak tree by Barney’s knives, jewelry from the last job shoved into his jacket. The long minutes of bleeding out, watching his brother follow Trickshot, watching him walk away for the last time. The strobe effect of coming to at the fingers on his neck, too close to a surprised deputy, too fast to keep from pulling at the metal still in his skin. Flashes of images with no sound, seeing Coulson, a silent shadow to the sheriff, the rough hands onto the stretcher, rougher voices at the ER, impersonal questions throughout, who, what, when, who who who. “How could I resist a hot meal and the promise of shiny new toys?” he said.

She tilted her head, like she was seeing what Clint was thinking. God, he hoped not. “And a cup of tea.”

Coulson shook his head. “It was onion rings, actually.”

Clint shrugged. “Well, yeah, but a cheeseburger, too. Not like _just_ the onion rings or anything. That’d be silly.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from George Ezra. Like I wasn’t going to us that? _Baby, if you hold me, then all of this will go away._


End file.
